Story Of My Thai Citizenship Application

[Neeranam]

9 hours ago, saakura said:

Yes, I can confirm that we were also asked for a 'gift' of 50,000 THB (apart from the official fee). Before asking, the officer went through my documents and casually commented (or rather commended) that both me and my wife were earning 'high' salaries.

I enquired if there was any way we could make the process 'easier' and was told no way with the military regime watching them like a hawk. 

[onthemoon]

13 minutes ago, Neeranam said:

I enquired if there was any way we could make the process 'easier' and was told no way with the military regime watching them like a hawk. 

Kudos to the current government, I say.

 

I wouldn't want to try that path anyway. If it later comes out (in 10 years or so) that you paid amounts without receipt to get the Thai citizenship, they might cancel it and book you for having gotten it through, let's say, deviation from prescribed practice.

[DrJoy]

6 hours ago, onthemoon said:

Kudos to the current government, I say.

 

I wouldn't want to try that path anyway. If it later comes out (in 10 years or so) that you paid amounts without receipt to get the Thai citizenship, they might cancel it and book you for having gotten it through, let's say, deviation from prescribed practice.

Your MOI interview? Finished or not?

[onthemoon]

3 hours ago, DrJoy said:

Your MOI interview? Finished or not?

Not yet. I haven't even had time to follow up yet.

[yankee99]

On 7/31/2022 at 1:44 PM, Neeranam said:

Did you change; your visa when you got Thai Citizenship?

 

 

I canceled my visa at immigration after i had my thai id and name in house book. My first time leaving Thailand oct 2021 immigration at the airport pulled me aside for about 10 minutes and updated my status in the computer. 

 

Re entered Thailand 2 weeks with thai passport and it was a breeze. 

[Marcati]

Has anyone who had their final MOI interview on May 24th of this year heard anything about the sign-off from the Minister?  I thought it would have been completed and sent to the Palace by now.

 

Thanks.

[onthemoon]

12 hours ago, Marcati said:

Has anyone who had their final MOI interview on May 24th of this year heard anything about the sign-off from the Minister?  I thought it would have been completed and sent to the Palace by now.

 

Thanks.

Pardon me for asking: When were your documents sent to the MOI so that you had your interview in May 2022?

[Marcati]

9 hours ago, onthemoon said:

Pardon me for asking: When were your documents sent to the MOI so that you had your interview in May 2022?

More than 2 years ago. I posted the date here somewhere at one point

[khongaeng]

So, funny thing.  When I left Thailand last week with an 11 year old child and without her mother, the immigration officer pulled me aside and wanted to FaceTime my wife to confirm she had given me her consent to take our child out of Thailand.  I'm glad that she didn't change her mind on the FaceTime call after dropping us off at the airport a few minutes earlier ????. When my wife flew with another child a few days later, they didn't ask for my wife to call me.  

 

So I guess foreigner-faced Thai guy with Luuk Krung kids is more suspicious then Thai mother with Luuk Krung kids.  When I asked if I should have brought any documents with me other than my child's passport, he said I should have also brought their birth certificate.  I thought the whole situation was a bit bizarre 

[Dogmatix]

1 hour ago, khongaeng said:

So, funny thing.  When I left Thailand last week with an 11 year old child and without her mother, the immigration officer pulled me aside and wanted to FaceTime my wife to confirm she had given me her consent to take our child out of Thailand.  I'm glad that she didn't change her mind on the FaceTime call after dropping us off at the airport a few minutes earlier ????. When my wife flew with another child a few days later, they didn't ask for my wife to call me.  

 

So I guess foreigner-faced Thai guy with Luuk Krung kids is more suspicious then Thai mother with Luuk Krung kids.  When I asked if I should have brought any documents with me other than my child's passport, he said I should have also brought their birth certificate.  I thought the whole situation was a bit bizarre 

It seems gender discriminatory (and possibly racially discriminatory) to question fathers travelling with their own children and not mothers. What if the mother couldn't be contacted? Perhaps worth travelling with a letter from the mother giving permission in addition to birth certificate showing you as father.  Although that could easily be forged, it might head them off, if the mother can't be contacted. I wonder if same would happen if the child used a farang passport. Would it happen with a Thai born father who didn't look farang?  I doubt it. The IO must have profiled you as as the type of farang who, regardless of having gone to enormous trouble to obtain Thai citizenship, abducts his look krung daughter to carry her off to a better life in the West far from drinking and gambling ex-bar girl mother who abuses her.  A crime to be stopped at all costs 555.

[qualtrough]

Preparing for an upcoming overseas trip, I was going through my passport and didn't see any indication that my visa had been cancelled. I did go down to immigration and cancel it once I obtained citizenship and they assured me that they had cancelled it in their system. Is that the normal process? I have left the country with my Thai passport one time, going to Lao, and didn't have any issues. I just want to be absolutely sure before I go on my next trip from Suwannaphum.

[qualtrough]

This thread is his dead as I've ever seen it. Anybody still out there? I'm no.t seeing any activity since I posted my question on the 5th.

[yankee99]

On 9/5/2022 at 7:14 PM, qualtrough said:

Preparing for an upcoming overseas trip, I was going through my passport and didn't see any indication that my visa had been cancelled. I did go down to immigration and cancel it once I obtained citizenship and they assured me that they had cancelled it in their system. Is that the normal process? I have left the country with my Thai passport one time, going to Lao, and didn't have any issues. I just want to be absolutely sure before I go on my next trip from Suwannaphum.

I would think if your thai passport is in the system already you'll have zero issues 

[Arkady]

On 9/5/2022 at 7:14 PM, qualtrough said:

Preparing for an upcoming overseas trip, I was going through my passport and didn't see any indication that my visa had been cancelled. I did go down to immigration and cancel it once I obtained citizenship and they assured me that they had cancelled it in their system. Is that the normal process? I have left the country with my Thai passport one time, going to Lao, and didn't have any issues. I just want to be absolutely sure before I go on my next trip from Suwannaphum.

I agree with Yankee.  If you have already completed a round trip successfully with your Thai passport, you can relax. The chance of any hassle is close to zero. in the remote event there should be a problem, you have followed best practice and cancelled the visa.  Many people in this thread reported that did not bother to cancel their visas and had no trouble with multiple trips under their belt. I think you can argue that visas just expire anyway, if not cancelled.  The only time this has ever caused problems is when people who already had Thai nationality arrived with a foreign passport and left on a brand new Thai one but there are no cases that I know of recorded in AN or elsewhere where newly naturalised Thais have had this problem. Of course, there is always a first time, I know.

 

Maybe someone else can tell you, if they should have stamped something in your passport to cancel the visa.  In my case I I had PR and thought it necessary to cancel it, as retaining PR, which, unlike, visas doesn't expire, could imply the retention of a foreign identity in Thailand. Also there is a clear process for surrendering PR at CW which only takes a few minutes with no queue and it can be done on the way to the passport office nearby. For my WP I took the view there was no point in going to the trouble of cancelling it and just it expire.

[yankee99]

21 minutes ago, Arkady said:

I agree with Yankee.  If you have already completed a round trip successfully with your Thai passport, you can relax. The chance of any hassle is close to zero. in the remote event there should be a problem, you have followed best practice and cancelled the visa.  Many people in this thread reported that did not bother to cancel their visas and had no trouble with multiple trips under their belt. I think you can argue that visas just expire anyway, if not cancelled.  The only time this has ever caused problems is when people who already had Thai nationality arrived with a foreign passport and left on a brand new Thai one but there are no cases that I know of recorded in AN or elsewhere where newly naturalised Thais have had this problem. Of course, there is always a first time, I know.

 

Maybe someone else can tell you, if they should have stamped something in your passport to cancel the visa.  In my case I I had PR and thought it necessary to cancel it, as retaining PR, which, unlike, visas doesn't expire, could imply the retention of a foreign identity in Thailand. Also there is a clear process for surrendering PR at CW which only takes a few minutes with no queue and it can be done on the way to the passport office nearby. For my WP I took the view there was no point in going to the trouble of cancelling it and just it expire.

They {Jomtien immigration} took about a hour to write this in  my foreign passport and my 1st trip out immigration didn't have a clue. Once immigration put me in the system there were never any issues coming or going 

[Arkady]

On 7/31/2022 at 1:42 PM, Neeranam said:

Royal Hua Hin golf club  basically told me I wasn't Thai and couldn't join. 

That is interesting as well as very nasty and racist of them. It is managed by the Singha beer people who pay a peppercorn rent to SRT for the land.  Funnily enough I enquired over 10 years ago before I got Thai nationality and was at first told I had to be Thai. Then I was told I could join, if I either had a tabien baan in Hua Hin or owned property there.  Since I had a condo there, I was told I would be eligible on presentation of the chanote.  In the end something came up which meant I couldn't spend so much time playing golf in Hua Hin and I didn't go through with it, as I didn't think I could justify the cost any more.  

 

It is probably an unofficial racist policy of whoever happens to be in charge locally at the moment. If you write to the Singha speople and to the papers telling them that Thai people are being discriminated against in their own country, things might change, as it is a very hierarchical organisation that is very concerned about its image which they spend a lot of money to burnish.

 

When I was playing golf there regularly, I became aware that there was a scam going on amongst some of the caddies.  They observed foreign golfers who, for reasons better known to themselves, would put their wallets in their golf bags.  At a certain par 5 where the tee was high up the caddies would take the golf bags down below to a point where they were out of sight from the tee but could see better where the balls landed on the fairway (or elsewhere), leaving their golfers alone on the tee with their drivers. At that point they would take out their golfer's wallet and remove some bills - say if they found 5,000 baht, they might remove 1,000 hoping it would not be noticed.  They would have already called a caddy accomplice to notify him that the opportunity had arisen and he would amble by on a motor bike and pick up the cash.  If the golfer noticed and made a fuss back at the club house, the caddy could ostentatiously turn out all his or her pockets and produce only small change.  At one point a male caddy,  a known yaa baa aficionado, got so greedy that he took the whole wallet and didn't want to share it will an accomplice, so it was still on his person.  The club management tried to calm the golfer down when he complained about the theft, insisting that he must have been mistaken as the caddy insisted he had not put the wallet in his golf bag.  But, seeing that the management planned to take no action about the theft, the golfer got riled and called the police himself. Thereupon the caddy threw the wallet into the bushes and pulled a knife on the golfer and threatened to murder him.  The police arrived and made a show of dragging the knife wielding caddy off but released him without charge and he was back at work the next day.  This scam went on for two or three years and obviously the caddy master was in on it and probably the club manager too.  For them and the police it seemed like a victimless crime, since only foreigners were targeted (just like the foreign call centres) and the victims were unlikely to have the connections or persistence to do them serious damage.  Most of the victims either didn't notice the thefts at all or couldn't be sure they had been robbed anyway.  The scam came to end when it finally got reported in the local Hua Hin English language free sheet and one of the national English language papers. Some of the female caddies who hated the aggressive male caddies who organised the scam (and harassed the female caddies) and didn't want to get involved in it had spilled the beans to a local foreigner.  That came to the attention of the Bhirompakdee family and they immediately fired the club manager, the caddy master and all the caddies involved in the scam - about half of the total and everyone knew who they were.  A new manager was sent down from Bangkok with no relatives in Hua Hin and that was the end of it but I would still not advise leaving your wallet or valuables in your golf bag there or at any other course.

[Arkady]

3 minutes ago, Arkady said:

That is interesting as well as very nasty and racist of them. It is managed by the Singha beer people who pay a peppercorn rent to SRT for the land.  Funnily enough I enquired over 10 years ago before I got Thai nationality and was at first told I had to be Thai. Then I was told I could join, if I either had a tabien baan in Hua Hin or owned property there.  Since I had a condo there, I was told I would be eligible on presentation of the chanote.  In the end something came up which meant I couldn't spend so much time playing golf in Hua Hin and I didn't go through with it, as I didn't think I could justify the cost any more.  

 

It is probably an unofficial racist policy of whoever happens to be in charge locally at the moment. If you write to the Singha speople and to the papers telling them that Thai people are being discriminated against in their own country, things might change, as it is a very hierarchical organisation that is very concerned about its image which they spend a lot of money to burnish.

 

When I was playing golf there regularly, I became aware that there was a scam going on amongst some of the caddies.  They observed foreign golfers who, for reasons better known to themselves, would put their wallets in their golf bags.  At a certain par 5 where the tee was high up the caddies would take the golf bags down below to a point where they were out of sight from the tee but could see better where the balls landed on the fairway (or elsewhere), leaving their golfers alone on the tee with their drivers. At that point they would take out their golfer's wallet and remove some bills - say if they found 5,000 baht, they might remove 1,000 hoping it would not be noticed.  They would have already called a caddy accomplice to notify him that the opportunity had arisen and he would amble by on a motor bike and pick up the cash.  If the golfer noticed and made a fuss back at the club house, the caddy could ostentatiously turn out all his or her pockets and produce only small change.  At one point a male caddy,  a known yaa baa aficionado, got so greedy that he took the whole wallet and didn't want to share it will an accomplice, so it was still on his person.  The club management tried to calm the golfer down when he complained about the theft, insisting that he must have been mistaken as the caddy insisted he had not put the wallet in his golf bag.  But, seeing that the management planned to take no action about the theft, the golfer got riled and called the police himself. Thereupon the caddy threw the wallet into the bushes and pulled a knife on the golfer and threatened to murder him.  The police arrived and made a show of dragging the knife wielding caddy off but released him without charge and he was back at work the next day.  This scam went on for two or three years and obviously the caddy master was in on it and probably the club manager too.  For them and the police it seemed like a victimless crime, since only foreigners were targeted (just like the foreign call centres) and the victims were unlikely to have the connections or persistence to do them serious damage.  Most of the victims either didn't notice the thefts at all or couldn't be sure they had been robbed anyway.  The scam came to end when it finally got reported in the local Hua Hin English language free sheet and one of the national English language papers. Some of the female caddies who hated the aggressive male caddies who organised the scam (and harassed the female caddies) and didn't want to get involved in it had spilled the beans to a local foreigner.  That came to the attention of the Bhirompakdee family and they immediately fired the club manager, the caddy master and all the caddies involved in the scam - about half of the total and everyone knew who they were.  That was the end of it but I would still not advise leaving your wallet or valuables in your golf bag there or at any other course.

 

34 minutes ago, yankee99 said:

They {Jomtien immigration} took about a hour to write this in  my foreign passport and my 1st trip out immigration didn't have a clue. Once immigration put me in the system there were never any issues coming or going 

You could perhaps argue that you had already renounced your former nationality tout de suite and returned the passport to your embassy.  Hence no need to cancel the visa because the passport is cancelled.

[Neeranam]

On 9/13/2022 at 11:27 AM, Arkady said:

That is interesting as well as very nasty and racist of them. It is managed by the Singha beer people who pay a peppercorn rent to SRT for the land.  Funnily enough I enquired over 10 years ago before I got Thai nationality and was at first told I had to be Thai. Then I was told I could join, if I either had a tabien baan in Hua Hin or owned property there.  Since I had a condo there, I was told I would be eligible on presentation of the chanote.  In the end something came up which meant I couldn't spend so much time playing golf in Hua Hin and I didn't go through with it, as I didn't think I could justify the cost any more.  

 

It is probably an unofficial racist policy of whoever happens to be in charge locally at the moment. If you write to the Singha speople and to the papers telling them that Thai people are being discriminated against in their own country, things might change, as it is a very hierarchical organisation that is very concerned about its image which they spend a lot of money to burnish.

 

When I was playing golf there regularly, I became aware that there was a scam going on amongst some of the caddies.  They observed foreign golfers who, for reasons better known to themselves, would put their wallets in their golf bags.  At a certain par 5 where the tee was high up the caddies would take the golf bags down below to a point where they were out of sight from the tee but could see better where the balls landed on the fairway (or elsewhere), leaving their golfers alone on the tee with their drivers. At that point they would take out their golfer's wallet and remove some bills - say if they found 5,000 baht, they might remove 1,000 hoping it would not be noticed.  They would have already called a caddy accomplice to notify him that the opportunity had arisen and he would amble by on a motor bike and pick up the cash.  If the golfer noticed and made a fuss back at the club house, the caddy could ostentatiously turn out all his or her pockets and produce only small change.  At one point a male caddy,  a known yaa baa aficionado, got so greedy that he took the whole wallet and didn't want to share it will an accomplice, so it was still on his person.  The club management tried to calm the golfer down when he complained about the theft, insisting that he must have been mistaken as the caddy insisted he had not put the wallet in his golf bag.  But, seeing that the management planned to take no action about the theft, the golfer got riled and called the police himself. Thereupon the caddy threw the wallet into the bushes and pulled a knife on the golfer and threatened to murder him.  The police arrived and made a show of dragging the knife wielding caddy off but released him without charge and he was back at work the next day.  This scam went on for two or three years and obviously the caddy master was in on it and probably the club manager too.  For them and the police it seemed like a victimless crime, since only foreigners were targeted (just like the foreign call centres) and the victims were unlikely to have the connections or persistence to do them serious damage.  Most of the victims either didn't notice the thefts at all or couldn't be sure they had been robbed anyway.  The scam came to end when it finally got reported in the local Hua Hin English language free sheet and one of the national English language papers. Some of the female caddies who hated the aggressive male caddies who organised the scam (and harassed the female caddies) and didn't want to get involved in it had spilled the beans to a local foreigner.  That came to the attention of the Bhirompakdee family and they immediately fired the club manager, the caddy master and all the caddies involved in the scam - about half of the total and everyone knew who they were.  A new manager was sent down from Bangkok with no relatives in Hua Hin and that was the end of it but I would still not advise leaving your wallet or valuables in your golf bag there or at any other course.

Thanks for the tip, I actually prefer Black Mountain and Seapines to Royal HH anyway. I never knew Singha owned it; I could ask a friend of mine from Khon Kaen, who is sponsored by them to help.

Yes, If I pressed it I probably could get membership but I wouldn't really be accepted as one, IMHO. You know what some of these members are like regarding 'farang', especially the Thai/Chinese ones. 

 

[Dogmatix]

1 hour ago, Neeranam said:

Thanks for the tip, I actually prefer Black Mountain and Seapines to Royal HH anyway. I never knew Singha owned it; I could ask a friend of mine from Khon Kaen, who is sponsored by them to help.

Yes, If I pressed it I probably could get membership but I wouldn't really be accepted as one, IMHO. You know what some of these members are like regarding 'farang', especially the Thai/Chinese ones. 

 

I expect the HH course was operated by SRT originally and then rented out for a song to Singha.  When the railway was planned royal grants of land were made to SRT, then SRS (State Railways of Siam), so that they could make HH into a destination for greater numbers of railway travellers, who didn't own their own land and villas like the nobles who previously came by boat. Obviously a hotel and a golf course were essential.  Hence the Railway Hotel, now rented out to Central as the Centara Hotel, and the Royal HH Golf Course right behind the station. 

 

I think you could use a membership to the golf course, just to save costs, if you played in HH often enough, without worrying about the snootiness of other members. Loads of tourists there in normal times anyway. 

[BKKBike09]

On 9/12/2022 at 9:57 PM, yankee99 said:

I would think if your thai passport is in the system already you'll have zero issues 

Curiously when I came back in a couple of weeks ago from the US the immigration officer asked me if I still had my foreign passport. Naturally I said no. Not sure why she asked, and my answer seemed to satisfy her.

 

It was slightly odd only because I flew in from Taipei, rather than direct from a country that would have required a visa in a Thai passport. I've been in a couple of times before that on direct flights from Europe and never had the question.

 

I wonder if the Immigration system now receives passenger information direct from the airlines showing where a passenger's journey first originated. If you flew Airline A from Europe all the way to Thailand but with a transit stop in say Singapore, the info would show the origin as Europe. Whereas Airline A to Singapore and Airline B SIN-BKK would show a Singapore origin. 

[Arkady]

1 hour ago, BKKBike09 said:

Curiously when I came back in a couple of weeks ago from the US the immigration officer asked me if I still had my foreign passport. Naturally I said no. Not sure why she asked, and my answer seemed to satisfy her.

 

It was slightly odd only because I flew in from Taipei, rather than direct from a country that would have required a visa in a Thai passport. I've been in a couple of times before that on direct flights from Europe and never had the question.

 

I wonder if the Immigration system now receives passenger information direct from the airlines showing where a passenger's journey first originated. If you flew Airline A from Europe all the way to Thailand but with a transit stop in say Singapore, the info would show the origin as Europe. Whereas Airline A to Singapore and Airline B SIN-BKK would show a Singapore origin. 

Hard to know, if she asked just out of curiosity or if there was a more sinister purpose. Also what would have been her reaction, if you said no. If she could see your itinerary on her system and noticed no US visa in your passport, then she would know your answer was incomplete, i.e. not using it on this leg but still have it. 

 

A friend came back from Oz with a completely blank Thai passport just weeks after getting his citizenship and they asked him if he still had a Kiwi passport. He said that he did and the IO said he could see on there system from his previous trips.  Seems that he was curious and happy that he could make a correct match.

 

I went to the US in August on ANA with a new Thai passport and  came back through Tokyo which scrapped visa free travel for Thais due to COVID. When I was checking in from the US to come back ANA's system gave me the option of changing nationality to travel on a different passport which I did. Otherwise there could have been a mismatch as Thai Immigration would have received the wrong passport details. My guess is that the airline sends them details of passengers' complete return trip, since they have it anyway and it would be of more use for destination countries to know where passengers have travelled from, rather than just where they transited. Anyway the IO stamped my passport without comment.

 

Anyone know when the e-gates will be functional?  I didn't even see them and wondered, if they have been carted off somewhere to salvage parts for scrap.  It is incredible that a new system that was many years in the planning, tendering and development and cost taxpayers vast sums of money should just be left to become obsolete and scrapped without ever using it. But as time goes on, that is looking more and more likely. This is a fast moving field and the system must already be somewhat out of date.  But that is exactly what happened to the infamous airport explosive detectors ordered during Thaksin's watch. One has a nasty sense that the problems with the e-gates are similar - i.e. so much of the purchase price went under the table that there wasn't enough left for the developers to produce a viable system or maintain it.  As traffic builds up at Swampy, they are going to need them, as they are intended for pre-registered foreigners both living in Thailand and abroad as well as Thais.   

[BKKBike09]

14 hours ago, Arkady said:

When I was checking in from the US to come back ANA's system gave me the option of changing nationality to travel on a different passport which I did. Otherwise there could have been a mismatch as Thai Immigration would have received the wrong passport details.

I had to give both passports at LAX when checking in but I don't know what airline put on their system. I used ESTA to enter the USA so that was tied to my former passport (in the ESTA application I did state that I also had a Thai passport).

 

14 hours ago, Arkady said:

Anyone know when the e-gates will be functional?

I asked several IOs on my way back in: answer was still that the new 10-year passports (unless serial begins with AA - mine is AB) don't work but 5-year passports do. However a friend told me that his (Thai) wife got a new passport some weeks after me and it works fine. I think next trip out I will try it just to see ...

[khongaeng]

I have flown in and out of the country 6 times since getting my Thai passport.  Since I have an ABTC card I always go through the Fast Track lanes which means I get stamps in my passport.  I don't have a single foreign stamp in my Thai Passport as I have always entered my destination country on my foreign passport, I only have Thai stamps which looks strange.  It has never caused me a single problem.  I always have to show both passports during check-in but from then on I only show the passport that I need at the time.  In Thailand at immigration and again at the gate, I show my Thai passport.  When I land in the foreign country I use my foreign passport.  Last week, the Thai immigration officer even politely asked me how I got Thai citizenship as her friend wanted to go through the process.  

 

I would never consider specifically picking a route that allows me to travel through a country that allows visa-free entry using a Thai passport.  The Thai authorities just don't care.  If one day they decided to give dual citizens a hassle, they would have to deal with an uprising of half of the elites in this country who have purchased or acquired another citizenship as part of their "safety net". So my message to anyone stressing about this is Don't Worry.

[qualtrough]

Update to my earlier post. I flew out and back into Thailand with my Thai passport without any issue, so my worries about having no 'official' visa cancellation were unwarranted, as several of you pointed out.

 

I will tell you something that feels really good. Getting off an 11 hour flight, walking past the foreign immigration line with a 30-40 minute wait, and walking up to the Thai immigration line to find just one person ahead of you. IMHO that's worth all the effort of obtaining citizenship alone, not to mention all the other benefits.

[Arkady]

On 9/29/2022 at 8:04 AM, khongaeng said:

I have flown in and out of the country 6 times since getting my Thai passport.  Since I have an ABTC card I always go through the Fast Track lanes which means I get stamps in my passport.  I don't have a single foreign stamp in my Thai Passport as I have always entered my destination country on my foreign passport, I only have Thai stamps which looks strange.  It has never caused me a single problem.  I always have to show both passports during check-in but from then on I only show the passport that I need at the time.  In Thailand at immigration and again at the gate, I show my Thai passport.  When I land in the foreign country I use my foreign passport.  Last week, the Thai immigration officer even politely asked me how I got Thai citizenship as her friend wanted to go through the process.  

 

I would never consider specifically picking a route that allows me to travel through a country that allows visa-free entry using a Thai passport.  The Thai authorities just don't care.  If one day they decided to give dual citizens a hassle, they would have to deal with an uprising of half of the elites in this country who have purchased or acquired another citizenship as part of their "safety net". So my message to anyone stressing about this is Don't Worry.

It would be difficult to inconvenience those elites by just enforcing existing legislation and bringing in new legislation to inconvenience them would be impossible under the 2017 constitution which, for the first time, prohibited involuntary revocation of nationality from those who are Thai by birth. Those who vulnerable to a move to suddenly enforce existing legislation, which is admittedly ambivalent and open to interpretation, are are naturalised Thais. In the past the main targets were those who acquired nationality through birth in the Kingdom to two alien parents but it is arguable that they are now protected by the constitution, if they are considered Thai through birth. Foreign women who acquire nationality through a Thai husband are not vulnerable. 

[Kalorymetr]

2 hours ago, qualtrough said:

Update to my earlier post. I flew out and back into Thailand with my Thai passport without any issue, so my worries about having no 'official' visa cancellation were unwarranted, as several of you pointed out.

 

I will tell you something that feels really good. Getting off an 11 hour flight, walking past the foreign immigration line with a 30-40 minute wait, and walking up to the Thai immigration line to find just one person ahead of you. IMHO that's worth all the effort of obtaining citizenship alone, not to mention all the other benefits.

While, there may not be problems with dual citizenship, there may be obstacles like the one mentioned few post before - golf club not allowing a guy because he's not Thai and that's it. What will you do, go to the police?

 

This is very unlikely, but possible.

[DrJoy]

2 hours ago, qualtrough said:

I will tell you something that feels really good. Getting off an 11 hour flight, walking past the foreign immigration line with a 30-40 minute wait, and walking up to the Thai immigration line to find just one person ahead of you.

The e gates not working yet?

[yankee99]

9 hours ago, qualtrough said:

Update to my earlier post. I flew out and back into Thailand with my Thai passport without any issue, so my worries about having no 'official' visa cancellation were unwarranted, as several of you pointed out.

 

I will tell you something that feels really good. Getting off an 11 hour flight, walking past the foreign immigration line with a 30-40 minute wait, and walking up to the Thai immigration line to find just one person ahead of you. IMHO that's worth all the effort of obtaining citizenship alone, not to mention all the other benefits.

I dont fly a lot but bank deposits and car registration at 7/11 is definitely worth it.  Thinking about it 7/11 has many things non-citizens cant do

[Arkady]

11 hours ago, Kalorymetr said:

While, there may not be problems with dual citizenship, there may be obstacles like the one mentioned few post before - golf club not allowing a guy because he's not Thai and that's it. What will you do, go to the police?

 

This is very unlikely, but possible.

Go to the police station and file a Section 112 criminal case. Since you are a Thai citizen, they are obliged to accept the case. If not you can complain to police national HQ.

[Arkady]

4 hours ago, yankee99 said:

I dont fly a lot but bank deposits and car registration at 7/11 is definitely worth it.  Thinking about it 7/11 has many things non-citizens cant do

Using 7/11 services is definitely a modest goal and not recommended to give as the reason someone wants citizenship at the Lamlukka interview 555. But we take what we can get. For me it 's just being able to show one document or maximum two, if tabian baan included, instead of the whole shooting match of passport, WP, PR and PR books. If you are not working, it is a constant irritation being asked for a WP, despite having PR.

 

For the manned Thai immigration gates, you can also use them with PR.  But with a Thai passport it's fun when an IO or some Thai busybody tries to shoo you out of the queue and you just flip over the Thai passport and watch their face fall. I actually did the busybody thing myself when I was close to missing a flight and there was a bunch of Indians in the Thai queue in front of me. They became aggressive and refused to budge. But when they got to the front of the queue, the IO just pointed a wagging finger towards the back of the long alien queue and packed them off without saying a word. Of course I gave them a big smile as they filed past me.